“Plato was an artist; and like many of the best artists, he tried to visualize a model, the ‘divine original’ of his work, and to ‘copy’ it faithfully. … It is an art of composition, like music, painting, or architecture. The Platonic politician composes cities, for beauty’s sake.”

“I do not believe that human lives may be made the means for satisfying an artist’s desire for self-expression. We must demand, rather, that every man should be given, if he wishes, the right to model his life himself, as far as this does not interfere too much with others.” (175)

”They [the draughtsmen] will take as their canvas a city and the characters of men, and they will, first of all, make their canvas clean – by no means an easy matter. But this is just the point, you know, where they differ from all others. They will not start work on a city nor on an individual (nor will they draw up laws) unless they are given a clean canvas, or have cleaned it themselves.” (175, citing Plato)

”This is the way in which the artist-politician must proceed. This is what canvas-cleaning means. He must eradicate the existing institutions and traditions. He must purify, purge, expel, banish, and kill … The view that society should be beautiful like a work of art leads only too easily to violent measures.”

”The political artist clamours, like Archimedes, for a place outside the social world on which he can take his stand, in order to lever it off its hinges. But such a place does not exist; and the social world must continue to function during any reconstruction.” (177)

“In all matters, we can only learn by trial and error, by making mistakes and improvements; … Accordingly, it is not reasonable to assume that a complete reconstruction of our social world would lead at once to a workable system. Rather we should expect that, owing to lack of experience, many mistakes would be made which could be eliminated only by a long and laborious process of small adjustments; in other words, by that rational method of piecemeal engineering whose application we advocate.”